Nadine Schütz Distinguished Lecture — Composing (with) places

Name: Nadine Schütz Distinguished Lecture — Composing (with) places
Start: 2025-12-01T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-12-01T19:00:00-05:00
Location: 527 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC, Canada, Quebec H3A1E3

Schedule

Mon Dec 01 2025 at 06:00 pm to 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

527 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC, Canada, Quebec H3A1E3 | Montreal, QC

Pour plus d'informations en français, veuillez visiter notre page web à ce lien : https://www.cirmmt.org/fr/events/distinguished-lectures/nadine-schutz
*Veuillez noter que cette conférence se déroulera en anglais.

This Distinguished Lecture will take place in the Multimedia Room MMR (-2 floor, 527 Sherbrooke O) and will be followed by a catered reception in A832 (8 floor) of the Elizabeth Wirth Music Building.
No registration is required for this event.

Title
Composing (with) places: At the threshold between sonic landscape and spatial music
Abstract
While classical concert places are made for hearing music, my sound compositions are made for listening to place.
This lecture traces a path through recent projects that engage space as instrument and environment as performer — from Boîte à Tubes, which evokes the sonic memory of an abandoned industrial site, to Vent, Soleil, Pluie, a three-part meteorological sound installation for the new Pleyel Bridge in Saint-Denis, and ongoing research with IRCAM on spatial room impulse responses as creative materials. Through these works, I develop the notion of sonic architectures: site-specific installations and compositions that invite people to experience a place through their ears — listening as a mode of dwelling.
Finally, I will focus on how this practice intersects with soundscape design and perception research. Through real-world case studies such as the Niches Acoustiques project, conducted in collaboration with IRCAM and McGill researcher Valérian Fraisse, I have contributed to developing and testing new methodologies for composing, simulating, and evaluating sonic environments in public space. This hybrid approach — between artistic composition and acoustic ecology — seeks to redefine sound as an inherent dimension of urban and landscape experience.

Biography
Nadine Schütz is a Swiss artist, composer, and sound architect based in Paris. Her work explores the sonic and spatial relationships between architecture, landscape, and music, transforming ambient sound into a medium for experiencing place itself. Through site-specific installations, compositions, and performances, she gives a voice to the environment, revealing its hidden dimensions and resonances. Her permanent acoustic designs contribute tangibly to the everyday experience of both outdoor and indoor spaces.
Trained as an architect, she holds a PhD in landscape acoustics from ETH Zurich, where she played a key role in founding the AudioVisual Lab and pioneered the integration of listening practice and sound spatialization into landscape and urban design. She is currently an associate artist at IRCAM–STMS (Centre Pompidou, Paris), a lecturer at the ETH Zurich Department of Architecture, and a visiting professor with the SOUND/IMAGE Research Centre at the University of Greenwich.
Her works have been presented internationally, from Zurich and Paris to London, New York, Kyoto, Moscow, Naples, and Venice. In 2024, she gained recognition for a monumental, weather-responsive artwork on the Pleyel Bridge in Saint-Denis, embodying an innovative vision of living sound architecture.

For more information, see our website: https://www.cirmmt.org/en/events/distinguished-lectures/nadine-schutz
Thank you to our partners:
McGill, UdeM, UdeS, ÉTS, FRQ, and CFI